Memories and Adventures

by Arthur Conan Doyle

The Military Correspondent of “The Times,” who was presumably Colonel Repington, had an article next day deriding the scheme, and making light of my picture of submarines in the Channel. Well, we have lived to see them, and I wish my argument had proved less sound. Colonel Repington has proved himself so clear-sighted an observer and commentator in the last war that he can be forgiven if, for once, he was on the wrong side; but if the Channel Tunnel had been put in hand at once after that meeting and rushed to completion, I wonder if it would be an exaggeration to say that a hundred million pounds would have been saved, while what it would have meant in evacuating wounded and in communications in stormy weather could not be represented in words. Imagine the convenience and saving of time and labour when munitions could be started at Woolwich and landed at Amiens without a break.

It has been argued that if the tunnel had been built the first swoop of the Germans would have brought them to the end of it and it would have been destroyed. But this will not bear examination, for it is based on the idea that we should have left the end unprotected. It would as a matter of fact have been the most natural fortress in the world, the strongest and the strangest, for it would be the only fortress where you could increase or withdraw your garrison at will, and introduce any supplies at any time you might desire. A very few forts and trenches on those convenient chalk slopes with their wide, smooth fields of fire, would hold the tunnel. In stretching their right wing as far as Amiens the Germans were very nearly cut off, and it was by a very great effort that Von Kluck saved it. If instead of Amiens he had reached Calais with sufficient forces for a siege he would have been unable to get away. An argument based upon the supposition that we should leave the mouth of the tunnel in Picardy as unprotected as the mouth of a coal mine in Kent is surely an unsound one. Now, in 1924, they are talking of building the tunnel. I wonder what our descendants will think of the whole business—probably what we think of the men who opposed the Suez Canal.

It is a most singular thing that our Navy, with so many practical and clever men in it, with a genius like Winston Churchill at the head, and another genius like Lord Fisher in continual touch, did not realize, until faced with actual results, some of the most important and surely most obvious points in connection with naval warfare. It came, I suppose, from the iron bonds of tradition, and that there were so many things to supervise, but the fact remains that a perfectly overwhelming case could be made out against the higher brain department of our senior service. A war with Germany was anticipated, and, as the public imagined, was prepared for, but save for the ship-building programme, which left us a narrow margin of safety, and for the concentration of our distant squadrons into British waters and the elimination of many useless craft which consumed good crews, what evidence is there of foresight? It was known, for example, that Scapa Flow and Cromarty were the two possible anchorages of the Fleet in a long-distance blockade, and yet no attempt had been made to mount guns or to net the entrances, so that for months there was a possibility of a shattering disaster; and Jellicoe, with the prudence which always distinguished him, had to put to sea every night lest his fleet should present a sitter to a torpedo attack. We showed intelligence in sticking always to the heavier guns, but our mines were wretchedly inefficient, our range-finders were very inferior, and our shells proved to have less penetrating and explosive force.

But the worst thing of all was the utter want of imagination shown in picturing the conditions of modern naval warfare, which must surely be done before just preparation can be made. It was clear that the effect of armour protection on one side, and of the mine and the torpedo on the other, would mean that if the ship floated there would be little loss of life, but that she was very likely to sink, in which case the whole crew would go. Therefore provision must be made for the saving of every one on board. The authorities, however, seem to have completely underrated the dangers of the mine and torpedo, and centred their attention upon the surface naval action, where boats, being inflammable, would be a danger and where in any case they would probably be shot to pieces before the end of the fight. The pre-war idea was to throw the boats and every other wooden object overboard before the action began.

The very first day of naval warfare showed the importance of the mine, as on August 5 the Germans laid a minefield outside the mouth of the Thames which nearly blew up their own returning Ambassador, Prince Lichnowsky, and did actually cause the destruction of one of our light vessels, the Amphion. It was clear that one of the great dangers of the sea lay in this direction, and it soon became equally clear that nothing had been done to think out some defence. Foresight would have anticipated this situation and would have set the brains of the younger naval officers at work devising some remedy. As a matter of fact the real solution had been roughly indicated by Colonel Repington in “Blackwood’s Magazine” some four years before, in which he spoke of a device called “the otter” used by poachers for gathering up lines, and suggested that something of the sort would gather up the lines to which mines are attached. After three years of war, and very many preventable losses, including the great battleship Audacious, the splendid auxiliary cruiser Laurentic with six millions in gold on board, and many other fine vessels, the cure was found in the paravane, which was an adaptation of “the otter.” After its adoption ships could cruise over a minefield with little fear of injury, and our squadrons were no longer confined to the narrow lanes which had been swept clear.

I was from the beginning greatly impressed by this danger, and I wrote early in the war both to the papers and the Admiralty, but my device was crude and clumsy compared to what was actually done. My idea was something like a huge trident or toasting fork which could be hauled up on the bows when the waters were safe, but could be pushed forward and dipped down in front when there was danger, so as to explode any mine before the ship could actually reach it. Such an apparatus would be better than nothing, but still I quite admit that it was an inadequate solution of the problem. But at least it was an attempt—and no other attempt was visible for years afterwards.

But the particular instance of mines was a small consideration beside the huge permanent incredible fact that while it was clear that a battleship could suddenly go down like a kettle with a hole in it, dragging a thousand men down with it, there was no provision by which the lives of these men could be saved. It was really unbelievable until there came the terrible example when the three cruisers, Hogue, Aboukir, and Cressy, were all put down in a single day. A young German lieutenant with twenty men had caused us more loss than we suffered at Trafalgar. To learn how the helpless men had nowhere to turn, and how they clung on to floating petrol tins as their only safety, should have been terrible reading to those whose want of foresight had brought about such a situation. It was a dreadful object-lesson, and there seemed no reason why it should not be often repeated. I had already commented in the press upon the situation which would arise in a general action, with ships sinking all round and no boats. I suggested that it might be possible to drop the boats before battle and to have them in tow of a steam launch which could bring them up if needed. Of course I saw all the difficulties and dangers of such a course, but if one took the word of the sailors that the boats were a danger on board then I could think of no other way of working it. When I wrote about it, several naval critics, notably Commander Jane, rapped me hard over the knuckles, and deplored the intrusion of landsmen into matters of which they knew nothing. But when this great catastrophe occurred, I realized that the protection must be individual rather than collective, and that one must ventilate the thing in public with such warmth that the authorities would be compelled to do something. If wooden boats were impossible, what about India-rubber collars which would at least hold the poor fellows above the waves until some help could reach them? I opened an agitation in several papers, notably the “Daily Mail” and the “Daily Chronicle,” and within a very few days—either post hoc or propter hoc—there was a rush order for a quarter of a million collars which could be blown out by the men themselves, and which were henceforth to be part of their vital equipment. The “Hampshire Telegraph,” the best informed of naval papers, said:

“The Navy has to thank Sir Conan Doyle for the new life-saving apparatus the Admiralty are supplying. Some weeks ago he asked if it was not possible to manufacture a simple and easily inflatable life-belt, and, thanks to the enterprise of a rubber-manufacturing firm, a swimming collar is now being supplied to the men of the fleet in the North Sea as fast as they can be turned out. The apparatus is exceedingly simple. It is made of rubber, enclosed in a stout web casing, and weighs complete under three ounces. It can be carried in the pocket and can be inflated in position round a man’s neck in about ten seconds. Its effect is to keep the man’s head above water indefinitely. There is little doubt that this swimming collar will result in the saving of many lives, and the Admiralty are to be congratulated upon the promptitude with which they have adopted the suggestion of Sir Conan Doyle.”

I was by no means satisfied with this, however; for, however useful in calm water on a summer day, it was clear that men would soon perish by exhaustion in a rough winter sea, and the collars would only prolong their agony. If wooden boats took up too much room and were inflammable, how about India-rubber collapsible boats? I wrote in the “Daily Mail”:

“We can spare and replace the ships. We cannot spare the men. They must be saved, and this is how to save them. There is nothing so urgent as this. We can view all future disasters with equanimity if the ship’s company has only a fair chance for its life.” Of course one recognized that there were some situations where nothing would avail. The Formidable, which was torpedoed near Plymouth on January 1, 1915, was a case in point. Captain Miller, of the Brixham trawler which rescued seventy men, said to the “Daily Mail” representative that I was doing a national work in my efforts to get better life-saving appliances for the men of the Navy. He remarked that in calm weather collapsible boats would be of use, but they could not possibly have lived in the seas which were breaking over the Formidable’s whaler. The weather here was exceptional, and one cannot hope to provide for every case.